


Where the Shadows Lie

by Assume That I Will Never Finish These (Caty_314)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Cliché trope - Harry joins the Fellowship, Harry in Middle Earth, Master of Death!Harry, Post-War Harry, more tags coming when I know what needs tagging 😅
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-18 23:37:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22001707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caty_314/pseuds/Assume%20That%20I%20Will%20Never%20Finish%20These
Summary: “It was over.It was done.It was finished.Voldemort was dead!“That should have been the end, but when did anything work out for Harry?Instead, he finds himself lost in a new world, cut off from all he once knew, with another war brewing, and another Dark Lord rising, a Dark Lord intent on finding him.Business as usual then.
Relationships: May or may not be slash? I don’t know yet
Comments: 11
Kudos: 68





	Where the Shadows Lie

Harry couldn’t remember a time when he’d slept so well, probably because there wasn’t one. He woke with that feeling of having slept far longer than just over night, an instinct confirmed by the amount of sunlight pouring in through the tower window. It really wasn’t surprising, he supposed, as memories from the last few days trickled in. 

There was no dramatic gasp as he remembered, no sudden shooting up into a seated position, just the calm and slightly incredulous satisfaction that it was over.

It was over.

It was done.

It was finished.

Voldemort was dead!

In the bed beside him, Ron was still snoring, slowly and deeply. It was a surprisingly soothing sound given the nasal reverberation and the occasional bubbly gasp of air. It had been a long year, for all of them, and now they would finally have the opportunity to rest, relax, and recover like they hadn’t been able to properly since… ever, if Harry was honest, but especially since Bill and Fleur’s wedding almost a year ago. The last few days in particular - the battle, the Forest, the Shrieking Shack, the Room of Requirement, Hogsmeade, Gringotts, Shell Cottage… Had it really been so long since they’d last really slept?

With a groan, Harry pulled himself upright. As much as he wanted to stay in bed for longer - forever - he just couldn’t do it. His fingers were beginning to itch with that restless need to ‘ _do something_ ’ that he’d become accustomed to during their year on the run. Even on their ‘quiet’ days it never went away, that fear of being caught, that feeling of needing to be moving, to find the Horcruxes, to destroy them… 

It was over now, _it was over_ , but Harry’s adrenal glands didn’t seem to know this yet.

A few minutes later, Harry was dressed, refreshed, and heading down to the Common Room. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was planning to do once he got there, he was operating more on muscle memory than anything, but he did have a vague idea about wanting something to eat. Maybe he could head down to the kitchens and ask the house-elves for breakfast. He didn’t want to go to the Great Hall after all. As much as he’d missed everyone, Harry didn’t really feel like being around other people. Of course, this thought only occurred to him just as he was stepping into the Gryffindor Common Room. Luckily, the only one sitting by the fire was Hermione, surrounded by books that she, for once, wasn’t reading. The rest of the room was empty.

“Where is everyone?” Harry asked by way of greeting.

Hermione looked up at him with that worn and slightly frayed around the edges look that she used to get when she’d finished writing her essay, had said everything she had wanted to have said in it, and yet couldn’t stop thinking about it or researching it despite not finding anything new to add to her answer as if she was certain she was missing something but didn’t know what. Harry hoped that she’d slept, but that look usually meant that, if she had, it wasn’t enough.

“Most of them have gone home, back to their families,” she answered with a preoccupied air. “Everyone else, well, some have started on the clean up and others are… making arrangements.”

And there it was. The reminder of all that had been lost securing their victory, of everyone lost.

_Arrangements._

Harry hadn’t stopped to properly think about it yet, but he supposed that he had arrangements of his own to make as well.

“I think Professor McGonagall and the other teachers have been keeping everyone busy that needs it,” Hermione finished.

Harry nodded slowly, his thoughts painfully resting on Fred and the other Weasleys, of Ron upstairs and the loss he would wake up to, of Lupin and Tonks, of Teddy and his own responsibilities to his newly orphaned Godson. Harry didn’t even know where to start. What was expected of him now? What was he supposed to do? So he did the only reasonable thing and sat down in an armchair adjacent to Hermione and her nest of books.

Simply as a strategy to keep his hands and mind occupied, Harry picked up the nearest of Hermione’s books. _Mind Over Matter: How Occlumency Can Unlock Forgotten Memories And Increase Memory Retention_. Harry fidgeted with the book. It wasn’t one that Hermione had taken with them when they went horcrux hunting, he thought to himself, latching on to the most inconsequential detail possible. “Library’s alright then?” he asked, temporarily avoiding the real issue.

This was obviously the wrong question because Hermione’s face and body contorted as though she was suffering physical pain. “The Training Grounds tower was badly damaged,” she answered weakly. “Whole sections of the library were lost. Madam Pince is going through to see what can be recovered.”

“And she let you borrow books?” Harry raised his eyebrows in mocking disbelief.

Hermione had the decency to blush, the very picture of contrition. “She, err, may not have noticed?” She shifted guiltily in her seat. “The regular enchantments are down, and it will be a while until the library is in any way functional again, and I simply _had_ to borrow these books-” Of course she had. If Harry’s parents had been hidden the same way, he’d have done the same thing. “-so I may have, slightly, put the books in my purse without her knowing?”

“You deviant, you,” Harry teased, earning himself a small smile and the minute relaxing of her shoulders. “And did… did your reading go well?” he asked hesitantly.

Hermione picked up a book for reference as she answered, flicking to a page she’d marked earlier. “It’s different, using memory charms on Muggles instead of on witches and wizards,” she began, and then she launched into an explanation of the irreversibility of Forgetfulness Charms on magical victims. Her voice took on that familiar lecture quality, her words speeding up and running into each other as she got more academically invested in her topic, leaving personal considerations behind. “-and since Muggles don’t have their own inherently accessible magical core, Radford’s Rule of memory suppression and cognitive scarring doesn’t apply which means that Muggles, unlike witches and wizards, can have obliviated memories restored while the magic of a witch or wizard prevents those damaged memories from returning, and-and…” 

She stuttered to a halt. When she spoke again, her voice was much smaller and much less confident. “And I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t know it could be undone. Or, well, I _could_ , to save them, but I knew it could, so it isn’t relevant.”

Harry reached out and gently closed his hand over hers where she was absentmindedly clenching the book on her lap, her knuckles whitened by the pressure she was exerting. “When are you going?” he asked.

She smiled at him again, that soft, sad smile that said that she understood and appreciated the comfort he was offering. “Not for a while yet, I think, but soon,” she told him. “I can’t… I can’t _leave_ yet. There’s so much to do, and Fred-” She cut herself off, quickly looking away. It was a few moments before she started again, Harry allowing her the time she needed. For a moment, only the soft crackle of the fire filled the silence. “Ron, the Weasleys, I can’t _leave_ him like that, not now, not when…”

Harry squeezed her hand. “Ron will understand,” he reminded her.

“Course he will,” Hermione responded as she looked back at him, but even though her voice was sharp, he lip trembled. “Of course he’ll understand, but my parents are out there, and they’re _safe_. They’re away from all this. Ron- He needs to be with his family now, and I can’t leave him, I _won’t_ leave him, not now, not now.”

Harry nodded again, his own heart echoing the sentiment only, as well as thinking of his best friend, he was also thinking of Ron’s younger sister, wondering to himself how he could support her through this pain, pain he wished he could have protected her from.

“You’re good together, you and Ron,” he murmured. It wasn’t quite a question, but it wasn’t quite a statement either.

Hermione gave a little huff that could have been a laugh, but equally could have been exasperation, and that look she gave him quite clearly said, _I love you, Harry, but you are an idiot_.

“Right. Sorry.” Harry tipped his head in contrition while trying to fight a smile. It was a losing battle.

They settled into a comfortable silence once more, one of those silences they had perfected during their year on the run, where they offered wordless support and acceptance to one another while drawing comfort and strength in turn. It seemed that their friendship had grown so much more from these moments of quiet than it had in all the years of speaking to each other at school. That didn’t mean that there wasn’t a place for words between them, but words brought their own complications. This time, it was Hermione who broke the silence. 

“Harry…” Her voice was hesitant enough that Harry’s hackles raised instantly. Hermione bit her lip, then powered on with nervous determination. “I don’t think you should put the wand back.”

The next silence between them was far less comfortable.

Harry tipped his head to one side and kept his tone light as he asked, “Oh?” Despite how calm he was trying to keep his exterior, conflicting emotions were raging through him.

He didn’t _want_ the wand. He wasn’t interested in it’s power, and the significance of it to him wasn’t something he wanted to recall. To him, the Elder Wand was a reminder that the last spell Dumbledore had cast with it was one to save Harry’s life, allowing Malfoy to disarm him and causing, minutes later, for him to be cast to his death. For Harry, the wand was a reminder of Malfoy Manor, of Luna and Ollivander locked in the cellar, of Hermione’s screams, of Dobby... For Harry, the Deathstick was a reminder of the Shrieking Shack, of Snape’s murder as Voldemort fruitlessly tried to gain mastery of a wand that would never be his, of the truth of scars and horcruxes, of sickly green curses cast in the forest. No. Harry didn’t want the wand.

Hermione was biting her lip again as she anxiously gauged Harry’s reaction, then she launched into her rationale, her nerves causing her to revert to that state of seeming to be able to speak endlessly without the need for breath that she had fallen into so often, especially in her younger years.

“It’s just that everyone heard you explain about the significance of the wand and that it is the Elder Wand from the Tales of Beedle the Bard and is therefore one of the Hallows that so many people would do anything and kill anyone to have and you explained how you got it and why it’s yours and then you proved it by beating Voldemort even though he had it and it’s not going to stay a secret because people will talk and probably have already and so everyone will know that it was Dumbledore’s wand and if you put it back they’ll know exactly where to find it and now they know-” She sucked in an unexpected breath and then continued as though she hadn’t paused. “-they’ll know they can win it from you by disarming you even if you’re not using it like you did Draco and even if they don’t win it from you it has still been publicly identified so if someone takes it it will still cause death and betrayal as people try to take it from each other and-” She cut off suddenly, her mouth still moving slightly as if she was still trying to talk but had unexpectedly run out of arguments to support her position. “And I don’t think you should put it back,” she concluded lamely, deflating into the couch as if she had run out of energy after her outburst.

Much as he hated to admit it, Hermione did make a good case, but just because he didn’t put the wand back where Voldemort had stolen it from didn’t mean he had any intention of keeping it either. “Okay,” he agreed, releasing a breath he hadn’t even realised he’d been holding - compensating for Hermione, no doubt. “Then, where should we put it? Gringotts?”

Hermione’s lips pursed, her fingers fidgeted as though she wanted to be holding a quill, and her eyes took on that far away look she got when she was trying to solve a problem. “Gringotts… might not be a good idea,” she said slowly. “I don’t mean to speak badly of them or anything but, considering all the wars between wizards and goblins, and considering the way Griphook took Gryffindor’s Sword the way he did, can we really trust them to protect the most powerful and bloodstained wand of all time?”

Harry couldn’t argue with her there. “Then where should we keep it?”

Hermione alternated between drumming her fingers on the cover of the book she wasn’t reading, and curling the top corners of the paper as though she intended to turn the page. “Well, they say Hogwarts is the best place to keep something safe, and we know of one place in Hogwarts that nobody else can find.”

“The Chamber of Secrets,” Harry supplied, his words deceptively bland.

“Exactly,” Hermione confirmed. “And I saw it with Ron- it’s huge, so much bigger than I’d ever suspected, especially if you consider all the places that are accessible _through_ the main chamber that aren’t _part_ of the main chamber. If we hid the wand somewhere in there, a few spells and runes to make it undetectable, then it would never be recovered, it will be gone from history from now on. And if anyone ever _did_ happen to stumble across it, either the cycle of ownership will be broken or it will be so removed from the wand that the two will never come together again. After all, without it’s allegiance, the Elder Wand is just a wand, as you proved with Voldemort.”

She was right, Harry had to admit. As much as he never wanted to set foot in Slytherin’s secret chamber again, it was the perfect place to make the Elder Wand disappear. It also meant the wand would still be buried, for want of a better phrase, on the Hogwarts grounds with Dumbledore’s tomb. They might not be together, but they would be as close as it was safe for them to be. “Yeah,” Harry nodded. “Okay. Do you want to take care of it now, or…?” Harry was all for dealing with it immediately. The sooner he could be rid of the wand, the better, in his opinion.

“Well, I’ll need to do some reading first, find the best runes to anchor the spells, and to do some calculations to make sure the arrangement is stable and will last indefinitely, make sure there’s no contradictory runes that will disturb the balance and cause it to draw attention rather than divert it away, and-”

“Her _mi_ one!”

She stopped at Harry’s interruption and sheepishly answered the question at hand. “A couple of days?” she said thoughtfully. “No more than a week, that’s with doing other things with our days, and I’m sure I’ll be ready before that.”

A couple of days. No more than a week. Okay. He could handle that.

Harry closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, forcing himself to settle. “Okay.” He opened his eyes unseeingly as he agreed. “A few days. Before we leave the castle again, we’ll-”

“ _Just…_ ”

Harry froze, closing his eyes once more. Whatever Hermione had to say, Harry knew he wasn’t going to like it. “Just?” he prompted, looking back at her.

Hermione was chewing on her bottom lip again, looking like she was trying to hold back but, as usual, it all burst out of her in a great torrent. “Yesterday you said to Professor Dumbledore’s portrait that ‘the thing that was hidden in the Snitch, you dropped it in the Forest,’ and I know you told him that you weren’t going to go looking for it, but… It was the Resurrection Stone, wasn’t it.”

It wasn’t really a question, so Harry didn’t answer. It wasn’t something he felt ready to think about. Lupin, Sirius, his parents… No. He wasn’t ready to deal with that at all.

Hermione took a breath and continued, a little more shakily than before. “Right. So… I know you don’t want it - obviously you don’t want it if you dropped it in the Forest and have no intention of looking for it - and you don’t want the wand, which is reasonable and sensible to not want them, to not want the Hallows, but I don’t think you should just leave it in the Forest. Magical artefacts like that have a habit of being found.”

“But…” Harry shook his head slightly as he tried to get his thoughts in order. “But Dumbledore said it was a good idea.”

Hermione gave him a sympathetic smile, and Harry tried not to bristle under it, tried not to feel _pitied_. “He did,” she agreed, “but it wasn’t really Professor Dumbledore. It was a _painting_. A painting with his likeness and a facsimile of his personality, but it’s not really him. It doesn’t have all his knowledge, his experience, his wisdom. Despite the advice it can offer, in the end it’s just a portrait.”

This blow hit Harry far harder than he was expecting, the knife twisting painfully at the reminder that his old Headmaster was, in fact, dead. Between seeing Dumbledore in Kings Cross station and speaking to his portrait, Harry’s heart seemed to have forgotten about this fact.

“But… Snape took advice from his portrait.” Even to Harry, his voice sounded pathetically small, weak, but he couldn’t summon the strength for more.

He looked down at his arm when his mind registered a feeling of weight and warmth there, and found that Hermione’s hand was resting on his tattered sleeve. He really should think about getting some new clothes now that they were no longer in hiding from the wizarding world, he thought absently. And robes too, not just Muggle clothes to replace the ones he was wearing.

“Snape would have known how much advice was helpful and how much was just the spell mimicking Professor Dumbledore’s personality, and he would have made the final judgment himself, just like you have to.”

“Why?” Harry demanded, snatching his hand away and leaping furiously from his seat. “Haven’t I done enough? Given enough? _Decided_ enough?” He wasn’t really paying attention as he paced the room, but Hermione’s tearful words brought him back to himself.

“You have. Oh Harry, you have,” she answered apologetically, “and I’m sorry to ask more, b-but…”

“But it has to be me,” Harry finished for her. He sighed and leaned his forearm heavily against the side of one of the tower windows, overlooking the Forest and the destruction below without really seeing it. He should be used to it by now. It was always him. It always had to be him.

“It’s just one spell,” Hermione anxiously explained from just behind his left shoulder. “And it might not work, and if it doesn’t, well, I’ll find another way and you won’t have to worry about it. It’s just… I thought it might work to hide the Stone in the Chamber of Secrets too, just, you know, a different part of it.”

Harry nodded absently, his eyes still locked unseeingly on the view before him. Again, she was right. The Chamber of Secrets would be the safest place for both the Elder Wand and the Resurrection Stone. And if they could seal both away at one time? Well, the Muggles had a saying about birds and stones, and Harry suspected it applied here. Or maybe he should be more mindful of eggs in baskets.

Harry sighed. It seemed to have become a morning for sighing. “So, what do I do?” he asked, not quite managing to hide the defeat he was feeling.

“Well, theoretically, you should just be able to summon it.”

Harry turned to face her, his eyebrows raised in bemusement. “But I didn’t think you could summon the Hallows. I mean, it never worked on my cloak.”

“But did you ever try to summon it yourself?”

He hadn’t. Someone else had always been trying to summon it from him while he hid beneath it.

“It’s because… Oh, I’ll just show you.” It was only a few steps for Hermione to collect her beaded bag from the couch and to return to Harry, her arm already rummaging in its impossible depths. “ _Accio Extraordinary Trials in History_ ,” she muttered before revealing, but not to Harry’s surprise, a book. “Hold this,” she told him, shoving her bag into his hands so she could flick through the volume. 

A grin played at Harry’s lips. He knew he could just preempt her, using the Summoning Charm like she’d directed, but there was just something comforting, soothing, about Hermione proving herself with a book, even though she’d long since proven herself to be more than a miss-sorted Ravenclaw. Hermione was one of the bravest and most courageous of anyone in their house. The grin teasing at Harry’s lips blossomed to its full potential as Hermione stabbed her finger down sharply at the page. 

“Here!” she said. “There were two pureblood brothers, twins, in disagreement as to who was the new Lord of their family after their older brother died unexpectedly without marrying or siring children. The brothers had been born suddenly at home, and there was dispute over which twin was the elder twin. The brother who had always been told he was older and had been officially registered as the firstborn twin claimed he was the rightful Lord of the family, whereas the twin who had been told he was younger said that, since their older brother’s death, the family artefacts had spontaneously started answering to him, meaning _he_ , and not his brother, was actually the elder twin. 

“To settle the dispute, the Lordship ring was taken from the first twin and the brothers were directed to summon it, as only the rightful owner could successfully summon the ring - a charm that prevented theft but protected against being lost.”

“And what happened?” Harry asked, feeling that a twist was coming.

“W-well,” Hermione stammered. “The Lordship ring went to the supposed younger twin, validating his claim, and he was officially appointed Lord of the family, un-until he died in a suspiciously convenient freak accident within the week and the Lordship fell to the last surviving brother.”

“They weren’t Malfoys, were they?”

“ _Harry_ ,” Hermione scolded, thumping him on the arm, but this didn’t stop him from snickering at his own joke. He wished Ron had woken up and joined them already. _He_ would appreciate Harry’s wit.

“So, I just summon it,” Harry clarified, turning back to the matter at hand.

“You just summon it,” Hermione confirmed. “If it doesn’t work, it might be that it’s charmed so no one, not even the owner can summon it, or it might be…”

“It might be that I’m not the master of the Resurrection Stone,” Harry finished. Honestly, he wasn’t sure which possibility he hoped for. “What happens if I’m not its master? If we hide it, could someone else summon it?”

“No,” Hermione reassured him with a shake of her head. “I can put anti-summoning spells and runes around it. I’ll do the same for the wand in case of… circumstances.”

“Circumstances,” Harry repeated in agreement. Yes, whatever they hoped, it was best that they prepared for circumstances just to be on the safe side. 

Harry began reaching for the holly wand in his pocket, but he paused almost as soon as he’d begun the movement. If he was really going to try this, he figured he should get it right first go. He bypassed his pocket and reached higher to the drawstring pouch he wore about his neck. It was awkward trying to open it one-handed, so he quickly shoved Hermione’s bag into his expanded pocket that held his invisibility cloak as Hermione’s hands were occupied by nervously hugging the reference book to her chest. His hands free, Harry drew the Elder Wand from his Mokeskin pouch. This would be the second, and hopefully the last, spell he cast with the Deathstick.

He pointed the wand out the open window. He could almost imagine that he was looking out over the place in the Forest where he had been killed - or, kind of killed.

One more fortifying breath, and- “ _Accio Resurrection Stone_.”

There was no visible change, but magic thrummed through the wood within Harry’s fingers, and he knew - he just _knew_ \- that the spell had succeeded. Even so, it took a few minutes for the Stone to cover the distance, just as it had for his Firebolt in a Task long ago. Hermione was just starting to suggest that the spell had failed when the Stone flew the last stretch towards him. With Seeker-honed reflexes, Harry reached out and caught the ring comfortably in the palm of his hand-

-and immediately wished that he hadn’t.

The window was gone. The Forest was gone. Harry lowered his arm and slowly turned around, his heart pounding painfully in his chest. The Common Room was gone. _Hermione_ was gone.

In place of Gryffindor Tower and the surrounding Hogwarts grounds, a river burbled happily through a field of wild grass, and the forest in the distance was the wrong colour green to the one he’d just been looking at. He turned again, looking back in the direction where the Forbidden Forest had been just moments before, but the mountain range that had taken its place was still stubbornly glaring at him from the horizon.

His hand tightened painfully around the accursed ring. He hated his life.

“This…” he said out loud, hoping that hearing his own voice would be enough to break the spell. It wasn’t. “This is not good.”


End file.
